[awm]

Playing in a swiss against decent opponents, you reach 4♥ on a strong club auction holding:

Scoring: IMP

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What do you think of the contract? In any case, it seems normal and now you have to try to make.

The opening lead is a spade to the ace (east had doubled an artificial spade bid for the lead), and a spade is continued which you ruff.

You play a diamond to the king and take a club finesse (agree?) which loses to west. Opponents return a diamond, which you win in hand, and you play your highest remaining club hoping to keep the long diamond hand off lead. West wins and plays the spade queen, which you ruff. You cash the heart ace and ruff your club loser in dummy. The last four cards are:

Scoring: IMP

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You lead a heart from dummy and east follows low. Do you play the ♥K or ♥J? Recall that it's IMP scoring, and you are not vulnerable. The match is likely to be close at this point.

[ArtK78]

Very aggressive contract non-vul at IMPs. If this were vul, it would be better. As it is, I would feel a lot more comfortable in a partial.

As for the play, it seems reasonable. You need to ruff a club in dummy if both club honors are offside. But it is hard to combine your chances. So, if you are lucky enough to guess the right club play (if there is one) you can make the contract anytime hearts are 3-2 by winning one club trick and ruffing another one in dummy after pulling 2 rounds of trump.

If you lose 2 club tricks, you have to ruff the third round in dummy and bring in the heart suit. Go for it all - it is only 50 a trick. In the final position, take the heart finesse. Even though it appears that LHO has only 2 diamonds, the heart finesse is still the percentage play. I am not worried about extra nonvulnerable undertricks.

[kfay]

The only reason not to finesse, it appears to me, is if you draw some sort of negative inference from W's failure to ever lead a heart hoping to possibly find his partner with Ax(x) of trumps to prevent the ♣ ruff since he's looking at ♥Qx himself precluding that holding.

To me I really don't think there's sufficient cause, however, to assume that this is the case. If W has the ♥Q couldn't he just play the ♣A and a ♣ to try to induce a convenient finesse at T6? This leads to a tougher guess for declarer imo.

I'd finesse here.

[awm]

If hearts are 4-1 onside, we can never make the hand. If we play the jack, we get two hearts and we can cash a diamond if RHO has the last one (as it appears from the defense). If we play the king, we can cash a diamond and promote the heart jack by ruffing a spade. So in either case we are down one.

If hearts are 3-2, there are 20 possible breaks. Four of them involve Qx onside and so can be discarded. This leaves:

4 ways for LHO to have Qx
6 ways for LHO to have Qxx
6 ways for LHO to have xx

If we play the ♥J, then we make 6/16 times. But when we go down, we are going down a lot. Most likely after LHO wins the queen they will tap us again (RHO discarding a diamond) and we go down three. If we play the king, we make only 4/16 times but when we are down we go down only one. So the IMP expectation for finessing, if the other table plays king:

4/16 times LHO has Qx. The other table makes, we go down three. Lose 11.
6/16 times LHO has Qxx. The other table goes down one, we go down three. Lose 3.
6/16 times LHO has xx. The other table goes down one, we make. Win 10.

Adding these up: -44/16 - 18/16 + 60/16 = -1/8 IMP for finessing. Playing the king is better!

In addition, there is some inference from the defense that RHO has three diamonds. This makes it more likely that LHO has three hearts. In fact, RHO also doubled spades for the lead; if this is a five card spade suit then RHO has remaining one heart, two spades, and one diamond which marks LHO with Qxx. These considerations make playing the king even more of a winner.

At the table, declarer put in the jack and lost to Qxx offside. Down three. At the other table, the defense did not get off to a spade lead and the same contract went down one.

[Fluffy]

Why didn't we win second diamong in dummy to try a club from there?, if this was written in a book it must be to cash ♥K now, cross in diamonds and now ruff a spade with ♥J.

[awm]

Fluffy, on Oct 23 2007, 11:15 AM, said:

Why didn't we win second diamong in dummy to try a club from there?, if this was written in a book it must be to cash ♥K now, cross in diamonds and now ruff a spade with ♥J.

Perhaps the thought is that if diamonds are 4-1, ducking to hand prevents the ruff from hurting you? It turns out that winning in dummy and leading up to the club doesn't really help -- even if you find the second club honor onside (it's not), you have to go back to dummy to take the heart finesse and this probably entails ruffing your high club.

As for cashing ♥k and crossing in diamonds, etc... keep in mind that this line won't make the hand for you. It does preserve down one if trumps are 4-1 onside and RHO has the third diamond. In the four card end position, you need all four of the remaining tricks.